Products are frequently shipped and handled by various types of product handling vehicles including trucks and forklifts. These vehicles are often subject to considerable operator abuse when used in unsupervised areas. The resulting damage from collisions to the vehicles and product being shipped can be costly and time consuming to repair.
One known prior art device includes an accelerometer and a microprocessor arranged to mount on a vehicle used for handling product for producing an audible alarm when the vehicle incurs an impact. The device however is disarmed by a simple key which may be duplicated. The device does not disable the vehicle or deter anyone from disabling the device itself thus making the device an ineffective way of determining who is responsible for an impact which has caused damage to the product being handled. The alarm of the device is dependent upon comparison of the accelerometer output to a single impact threshold value. The device thus cannot record soft impacts of relatively short magnitude and long duration in addition to hard impacts of relatively large magnitude and short duration, both of which can result in significant damage to either the vehicle or the product being shipped.